Noor, Author at E-commerce Made Easy in India | E-commerce Solutions India - ANS Commerce

Complete Guide for Conducting the SWOT Analysis for your E-commerce Business

With the e-commerce industry flourishing, competition has also become fierce. The external contingencies are also increasing day by day. This has made it mandatory for brands to analyze themselves by conducting a SWOT analysis and find out where they stand.

The need of the hour is to have a SWOT analysis for your e-commerce business. Not only will this let you analyze the internal factors, but also helps you learn about upcoming opportunities and threats.

Basics of SWOT Analysis

The goal of the SWOT analysis is to make the best use of the business strengths and look out for the upcoming opportunities to utilize them to their full potential. But at the same time, it becomes important to keep in mind the weaknesses of the business while taking the best measures to mitigate the upcoming threats.

Strengths

To find out your strengths, you need to ask yourself certain questions –

What makes your e-commerce business unique? Do you sell niche products that are not easily available in your target location?
Do you offer comparison shopping on your brandstore?
Do you provide your customers with product recommendations?

Weaknesses

There are examples of certain challenges that every e-commerce business faces, such as –

No immediate gratification because of the long transit period
Perishable products are quite expensive to ship
Unwillingness to pay online due to security and fraud concerns

Businesses need to take these concerns seriously while conducting a SWOT analysis and figure out ways to tackle these weaknesses.

Opportunities

E-commerce is quite dynamic, new technologies and features offer a seamless shopping experience, resulting in higher sales volume. Some examples of how brands can use technology to their advantage –

Advancement in shopping cart technology provides a customer-friendly shopping experience
Companies can now leverage Big Data analytics to understand customer behavior and preferences
Social media marketing is an inexpensive way to create brand awareness

Threats

Always be on the lookout for changes in the industry that might affect your business growth, such as –

Change in the privacy policy
Low barriers to entry can result in new competitors
Price wars with big e-commerce companies

Try to attract non-price-sensitive customers by offering value-added services like free delivery, customer service, loyalty programs, and more.

SWOT Analysis | What steps should you take if you are an e-commerce company?

Do a comprehensive research

Before you begin with SWOT analysis, you must research well to understand your industry, market, and business. It’s very crucial to research before you make any move. You need to collect data, interpret objective and subjective research. For instance, to check why your brand store’s traffic is not increasing, you should pay attention to unique visitors, traffic trends, and page views of your website.

Begin with the external factors

Opportunities and threats are the external factors in SWOT analysis. It’s always best to start by analyzing and evaluating them. For instance, If you are looking further to offer better experience and quality, you must keep in mind the external opportunities (it could be a new fashion trend, benefiting government policy, new technology) and leverage them. On the other hand, you must never forget the future contingencies that are threats and do your best to contain them. It’s always in your control to make the best use of strengths and mitigate weaknesses.

Let’s take an example to understand it better; you did a SWOT analysis and you learned that there is an upcoming threat. You made a quick backup plan to tackle the situation and did not have to bear any loss. But on the other hand, if there was no SWOT analysis you would not have known which threat is on the way to harm your business. That is why we recommend you to start with external factors as they are the ones that affect your business either adversely or positively.

Write your SWOT based on real facts

After the research part, you are ready to create your SWOT analysis. The most prominent goal of SWOT analysis is to give you a realistic view of your business. The first key point is to think about where your business stands in the current scenario. While you are writing down your SWOT, just write the facts based on the actual capabilities of your business. Remember, it’s not an advertisement, where you are listing the best points and ignoring all the negative aspects, but you are giving a realistic picture to yourself about your company by listing the strengths and weaknesses accurately. The other key point is to think about where your business stands in the current scenario, this could be incredibly useful while developing strategies.

Quick tip: Do not let your SWOT analysis look like a monotonous novel, keep it brief. Avoid complex sentences or words to avoid overthinking. You can also hire a third party to create a professional SWOT report. Request your free DEMO now!

Convert your strengths and weakness into opportunities

Your business strengths are only useful if you could benefit from them. For that, you must transform your strengths into opportunities. You can use the method of – matching and converting. It enables you to match the strength and weaknesses with opportunities and threats and convert them into opportunities or mitigate them.

Here’s how –

Strengths – Opportunities

Leverage your internal strengths to take advantage of opportunities

Strengths – Threats

Use your strengths to minimize the threats

Weakness – Opportunities

Reduce weaknesses by leveraging opportunities

Quick tip: You can discuss with your team to identify the weakness and strengths of your business, by carefully examining the points you can get clarity if weaknesses and strengths could be converted into opportunities or not.

Understand the market trends

How much is the demand for your products? Will the demand for your products rise in the coming future? Are you keeping any stones unturned to increase the demand for your products?

All these above questions are quite simple, but at times it gets very hard to find answers to them. Well here are some tips to uncomplicate things for you:

Understand the market trends that could increase or decrease your demand( for instance, a trend of wearing multicoloured outfits while you only planned to deal with light colours)

Calculate the current demand and project the future

Analyze the competition that could affect your market share, for instance, if a new brand started to offer services at a very low cost which was your strength, it will affect your demand adversely)

Want to move your business online? Read this article to learn how to transition from an offline to an online store.

How can ANS Commerce help you?

E-commerce businesses face a lot of challenges while managing their daily operations. At ANS Commerce, we offer full-stack e-commerce solutions to our clients so that they can leave ‘all-things-e-commerce’ to us and focus on their brand and product.

You can also avail of free marketing audits conducted by our marketing experts to provide a quick evaluation of your brand’s growth and performance perfection. From gauging compelling techniques to compiling a list of strategies to optimizing ROAS, this marketing audit will offer a target-oriented view of your business and compare its performance with the competitors.

Book your free Marketing Audit today!

It is not mandatory to have a SWOT analysis for e-commerce brands, but it is obvious that it works amazingly in pushing the business towards success. It will show your business team the right direction to move by mitigating your threats and weaknesses and making the best use of your strengths and opportunities.

5 Easy Ways to Protect your E-commerce Store from Security Breach!

The pandemic has forever changed the behavior of people towards online shopping. Social distancing lets a lot of people shift towards online shopping. This also led to an increase in online transactions. Well, that’s good news for every online retailer. But, if we take a look at the other side, cybercriminals are getting wiser day by day, taking the advantage of the situation.

The constant game of dog and thief is prevalent since digital technology has been introduced. We need innovative techniques to protect our e-business from cyberattacks.

It is already high time for you to defend your business by implementing the latest security systems. For your assistance, we have listed various steps by means you can safeguard your store from any type of security threats.

What is a Security Breach?

“A security breach occurs when a hacker is able to bypass all the protected security mechanisms and access the data without authorization.”

5 Easy Ways to Protect your E-commerce Store from Security Breach!

Let’s make data security and enforcement of data control your priority by implementing these 5 ways in your security system now!

1. Use a secure connection for check-out

Some marketers are still living in the misconception that if they use an HTTP protocol, their data is safe and secure. Do you think is it still safe if your user information is transferred directly to the server? It is obviously not, well the HTTP protocol does the same and the reason is it doesn’t have encryption. Hackers could easily use confidential information like ATM pins and bank account details.

Well, we suggest you use HTTPS Protocol as it encrypts the data sent between browser & server and has SSL (Secure Socket Layer). It doesn’t only secure your customers’ data from all ends but even protects business-critical information like intellectual property and employee data.

Do you want to set up a secure brandstore? Explore our in-depth guide on moving from offline to online store here!

2. Reduce storing customers’ Confidential Data

The first thing businesses try to do after spotting a new visitor on their brandstore is to get their hands on his/her data. However, if your website gets compromised your customers have to pay that price as it will open the doors for hackers to steal their information. Well, it’s a very wise decision not to store crucial information like bank or credit card details. In the short run, your customers will face a little problem in checking out as their cards are not saved. However, in the long run, it will save you from a lot of legal penalties.

Quick tip: You can encourage your customers to use other payment gateways that do not involve storing information for making transactions.

3. Maintain PCI compliance

If for some reason you’ve to store customer data then we advise you to follow PCI compliances. It is a quick and simple way to check a long list of measures that need to be taken to ensure and safeguard your customers’ transactions. If you choose to miss this vital step your e-business might have to endure severe pain as it will take a lot more resources, funds, and time to rectify the data breach.

4. Conduct regular audits

Conduct regular audits to check your security measures. External audits are an easy way to systematically review where your business currently stands with its data, network, and device security. It also assists in finding out if there are any potential security issues and how to tackle them before any damaging security breaches occur.

Quick tip: Don’t know how to conduct regular audits to ensure the security of your brandstore? Kartify ensures regular security audits, making it incredibly easy for you to manage your business operations. Request your free DEMO now!

5. Update your backend software

Is your website updated? When was the last time you updated your backend software? Your business could easily be the next target of a security breach. Updating the website regularly will act as a strong shield and will prevent cybercriminals from accessing your systems.

Quick tip: After installing the latest version of software you are using, don’t forget to install a good ransomware blocker as it keeps your system safe from any illegitimate sources.

How can we assist you?

Are you confused about how you can safeguard your customers’ data? Well, we got you covered as your security of data and systems is paramount for us. Kartify – our brandstore tech will solve all your security-related issues with the following features:

Regular Security audits with VA/PT; ISO / IEC 27001:2013 (WIP)
Cloud Armor & regular back-up & version control; data encryption
Proper access control for dev, deployment

What are you still waiting for? Request your free DEMO now.

In 2021, when cybercriminals are finding new vulnerabilities to exploit, it’s the need of the hour to implement these techniques into your e-business and protect your e-commerce platform from upcoming costly attacks.

Prominent Tips to remember while choosing an E-commerce Warehouse

Are you forgetting something important in the hassle and excitement of setting up an e-commerce store? We just wish you are not forgetting the most important aspect i.e. Warehousing, which is the heart of any e-commerce company and can make a huge difference to your bottom line. A good warehouse and inventory management system can let you save a huge sum of money while meeting your customer demands at the same time. Well, we all know that a good warehouse has infinite benefits to your e-commerce business, but the question is ‘How can we select a good e-commerce store’. Well, we are here with the ultimate solution.

“An e-commerce warehouse is a lot more than a place for just storing your goods. It is a place that keeps your goods safe and secured, helping you track their movement.”

Factors every e-commerce merchant must keep in mind while selecting a Warehouse!

1. Location proximity

There is no benefit of having a warehouse that is distant from your consumers as it will take huge travel costs and time, which will eventually dissatisfy your customers. But on the other end choosing a warehouse close to your customers can reduce your travel costs and time. This way you can make your customers happy. Your first step before selecting a warehouse must be determining your consumer base by pinpointing the regions you are thinking to serve.

Quick Tip: In the process of choosing a warehouse, you must ensure that it has substantial prerequisites for your goods

2. Number of SKUs

Warehouses not only store goods but also serve us with functions like tracking inventory items, estimating adequate storage, and calculating storage charges. Well, these functions are completed by Stock Keeping Units. This is the ultimate solution for companies who deal in a diverse and variety of products as they are able to determine stock levels easily. They don’t have to pay much and are able to turn over their inventory quickly and efficiently. Large companies have plenty of SKUs in their warehouses and that is the main reason for their smooth operations. That’s why you must see the number of SKUs before selecting any warehouse.

Quick tip: If you have large SKUs and slow turnover rates, standalone warehousing will be a cost-effective solution for you.

3. Integration of Advanced technology

With the development of technology, warehouse operations are drastically evolving day by day. It provides a number of benefits such as faster production times, diminished risk of processing errors, better management of inventory, and many more. Well, this makes one thing clear that a warehouse must be integrated with the best and advanced technology to get smoother operations. Enhanced services driven by advanced technology such as pick by vision, drones electronic data interchange, etc. are a must in warehouses these days.

Quick tip: Softwares are less expensive and offer you a better rate of investment than automated solutions.

4. Availability of Workforce

The physical space of your warehouse is not just a location as it has many more factors inclined to it. One of the prominent factors is the availability of the workforce. Well, the workforce is not just people willing to work but people with proficient skills willing to work at the right price. It’s better to determine your workforce needs beforehand. You can do that by researching the demographics of the area by gathering knowledge on their education level and average incomes. Your work doesn’t end by hiring the right set of the workforce as you need to even understand them well as this will affect your turnover rates, employee retention, and productivity.

Want to know the complete process of order fulfilment? Read on

5. Flexibility and longevity

It is integral to think long-term and understand the potential of your warehouse. For that, you must analyze the growth of your company in the future. For instance, if you think there is room for expansion in the coming years then your warehouse must be flexible enough to adapt to the change and accommodate the growth.

6. Return Management

If you are running an e-commerce business you already know that returns are a vital part of this business. It’s very important to manage the returns successfully as it is normal for people to return items that do not meet up their expectations afterward. To execute return management efficiently, your warehouse must have all the functions to handle the return process efficiently once the goods arrive back at the warehouse. The warehouse must refurbish the returned stock properly for a quick turnaround in inwarding, resulting in less blocked inventory. Also, it saves time and cost.

Quick tip: Don’t know how to manage order returns? Leave everything to ANS Commerce as we assist businesses with an efficient return management system that too with JIT Flexibility as per business requirement for fresh and returns inward management. Request your free DEMO now!

How can we assist you?

If you are worried about how to manage your inventory, then we are here to assist. With end-to-end fulfillment and logistics- from the product in warding to delivery, ANS Commerce is specialized to cater to all your e-commerce needs. We manage the warehouse and supply chain across all channels, including multi-category storage support and return management with JIT flexibility. Request your free DEMO now!

What can you expect from ANS Commerce?

Order processing: We handle the complete ‘pick-patch-dispatch’ process and the manifestation of your B2C orders, including B2B marketplace delivery with integrated logistics
Return Management: We receive, re-label, and pack products with better QC standards; report cancellations, and returns
Third-party coordination: We ensure timely delivery with an optimized cost for both domestic and international inventories. Also, we enable marketplace shipment with trusted partners – Delhivery, Bluedart, FedEx, India Post, etc.

Choosing a warehouse is not an easy task as it requires a lot of planning and researching. But we assure you that keeping in mind these factors you will be able to choose the best warehouse for your e-business that will make the best of its potential.

6 Important Things to do Before the Financial Year Ends

The end of the financial year is approaching while reminding us of all the important fillings we need to wind up. From bank statements to managing physical inventory to claiming additional depreciation, there are various things an entrepreneur must do before the financial year ends. It is also integral for investors to collate the income earned from different sources of investment such as capital gains or dividends so that they could calculate the tax liability.

If you are confused as to what important things you will need to complete before the financial year ends, we are here for you. We have curated 6 things you should do before the financial year ends. So let’s dive in.

Checklist of 6 important things to do before the Financial Year ends

1. Try to verify your Loan accounts

Loans and debts are common in the world of business. To scale your business, it’s important to expand capital that can only be generated by loans. But you need to check and verify the loan accounts before the financial year ends. If you have taken any loan, try to pay it on or before 31st March 2021. This will help you improve the balance sheet position of the Debt Equity Ratio.

Quick Tip: While adjusting your bank statements if you discover any errors, you can compare it to cash a/c in the general ledger of the bank statement to spot the errors.

2. File the TDS Returns

Business entities are required to file TDS returns timely to avoid late filing charges along with interest on late payments.

3. Calculate the GST turnover while reconciling GST ledgers

If your business is not under the GST registration limit of ₹40 lakh, you should keep the track of your turnover. The total turnover up to 31st March should be calculated for the purpose of determining the important aspects such as the GST registration, eligibility of opting composition scheme, and applicability of filing of specific returns.

Moreover, GST payments are done either via tax credit or challan payments. You should reconcile the Cash Ledger, Credit Ledger, and Liability Ledger on the GSTN portal along with your books of accounts. Make sure all the entries in the books are done before the year-end. Also, don’t forget to reconcile debit notes, credit notes, rate difference, discount, etc.

4. Conduct a physical inspection of inventory

Take a physical inventory of Raw Materials, Work In Progress, Finished Good, Stores & Spares, Loose Tools, Consumables, etc. as on 31st March 2021. Also, compile the information of its market value as on 31st March 2021 which would be essential at the time of valuation to be adopted in the Balance Sheet as on 31st March 2021.

5. Purchase Of Fixed Assets to claim depreciation

If you have purchased any tangible or intangible fixed asset during the previous financial year and made it put to use for the period of 180 days or more, depreciation will be allowed at the percentage prescribed for that kind of asset.

If you have purchased an asset for a period of fewer than 180 days, the depreciation will be restricted to 50% of the amount calculated at the prescribed percentage.

So, if you are planning to purchase any fixed asset, purchase it and put it to use for business purposes on or before 31st March 2021 so as to avail deduction of depreciation at least at the rate of 50% of the normal rate of depreciation.

6. Calculate Payable Advance Tax

Income tax follows the principle of “Pay As You Earn”. Therefore, during the financial year – 1st April 2020 to 31st March 2021 – for the advance Income tax which was payable on or before 15th June 2020, 15th September 2020, 15th December 2020 & 15th March 2021, if you have not paid at least 90% of his tax payable by way of the advance tax, your interest will start from 1st April 2021 till the month of the payment.

A good accounting system prepares you for the best for the coming financial year. It’s substantial to keep your worksheet updated especially during the Financial year-end to avoid last-minute hassle and stress.

7 Tips to Escalate Your Business by Using Email Marketing

Email Marketing is used by almost all businesses across the globe. We have known this marketing strategy even before the hype of online marketing started. But with the changing landscape, people have become busier than ever and they don’t have time to follow bulk email messages. That’s when your email marketing strategy fails your strategic marketing campaign.

Well, fret not! Do you want to convert your customers in the most direct and effective way while nurturing them with occasional updates? Email marketing is your only saviour. But before you start the campaign, let us walk you through the tips and tricks, making your email marketing a win-win!

7 Tips to Use Email Marketing in the right way

1. Select an eye-catching subject line

A subject line can either attract a customer or deter them from reading further. Not only does a subject line form the base of your message, but also acts as a parameter, deciding whether your email will gain traction or not. No matter how enticing your promotional mail was, if the subject line is not attractive, nobody will give it a read.

Quick tip: Want to make an eye-catching subject line? Following are a few examples of some impressive subject lines!

1. Tonight only: A denim lover’s dream can be fulfilled
2. Is this the hottest career in marketing?
3. Hey Rahul, this is what you have been missing!

2. Curate short-crisp content

An email is generally read when a person is either riding a cab to reach their office, or sitting in a metro, waiting for their station. Your email goes to waste the moment you start using complex tones with hard-to-understand language. Thus, the content should be short and precise, letting the recipient understand your message in a single go.

“As every word counts and explains its significance, it is crucial to use the right set of words!”

Quick tip: It’s important not to use high-mounted and fancy words in your email content as every customer has a different level of understanding. The usage of trendy slang with short copy is what catches the attention!

3. Avoid shouting loud

There is a misconception that using ‘upper-case’ & ‘exclamation marks multiple times could drive the attention of the customer. This is not at all true, as it might look like the brand is shouting out loud. There are even chances that a spam filter could flag your message, ultimately affecting the email open rate. Just stop using capitals and exclamation marks in the subject line as well as the body of the Email as it is a big turn-off for readers.

Want to know how to make a persuasive email newsletter? Read on to find the best tips!

4. Use mobile-friendly UI/UX

Today, a large number of people prefer opening mail on their smartphones as it is quite fast and easy to access. But, there is a huge difference in the presentation when mobile devices are compared to computer screens. Thus, you must optimize and personalize your users’ experience by making it easier for them to read emails on mobile devices.

Quick tip: Following are some easy tips you must follow to make your emailer mobile-friendly:

1. Put your call to action at the top so your customer don’t have to scroll
2. Do not rely on large-sized images as sometimes they don’t load on mobile phones
3. Keep the email copy neat (Don’t write long paragraphs)

5. Pay attention to the metrics

It takes a lot of effort to create interesting, beautiful, and engaging emails. But these efforts can go in vain if your customers never get to see them. You should never take the delivery process lightly. If you are assigning it to your email service provider, don’t think your work has ended there. You must give priority to analysing the open rate, bounce rate, and unsubscribe rate. After this, you can actually check your performance and learn what worked well and what didn’t, helping you make corrections.

6. Clean your Email list

Cleaning your Email list is the process of deleting obsolete domains! Sending emails to domains that don’t exist anymore will only affect your email open rates. By cleaning your email list you are not only enhancing the open and bounce rate but also minimizing the risk of being spammed.

Quick tip: To improve your email open rate, and reduce the bounce rates, try cleaning your list after every 6 months!

7. Make the most out of the A/B Testing

Getting everything right in a single try is not possible every time. Sometimes, you can check the effectiveness of your campaign by running two different campaigns together with minor changes. This is called A/B testing.
For example, to check the efficacy of your email subject line, you can run two different emailers with the same content, but different subject lines. This will help you check which subject works the best.

How can we help you?

If you want to improve the online marketing strategy of your brand, then fret not and invest in our performance marketing solutions. From checking your brand logo to creating account progress reports to optimizing the load time of the website, ANS Commerce provides you with performance marketing solutions across various channels with a special focus on sales and ROAS. Request your free DEMO now!

A well-done email marketing strategy can help you drop your customers in the sales funnel in no time. Don’t forget to keep track of the time your users read your emails the most. Also, keep the tone of your content the same for all emailers as it’s the voice of your brand. Follow our tips and promote your brand effectively.

Brilliant Ideas to Pump Up your Business with Visual Marketing!

Did you know, the human mind perceives images way faster than text? Well, enough of our textbook definition, let’s talk realistically about it!

People these days have become more conscious about the products they see online. No sooner have they come across a product visual than they made the purchase. This is the magic of Virtual Marketing. Well, It’s high time you make use of Visual marketing to its full potential. Let’s get started!

“From complementing the boring text to narrating a story, Visual Marketing is all you need to boost your sales.”

Here are some tips to use Visual marketing efficiently, leveraging great results, and making the best use of your content in innovative ways!

1. Employ GIFs and other creative visuals into the branded content

To create fun and humor into your content, GIFs are considered to be one of the best options. Every marketer has a goal to be one step ahead of the competitors and GIFs are making that happen as they catch the attention of people quickly. Be it blogs, emails, or landing pages, social media channels, they work like magic to grab your customer’s attention.

2. Take on User Generated Content

These days authenticity and engagement are the priority for every brand. To meet these objectives, brands should indulge in User Generated Content. UGC, as the name suggests, is the content curated by the customers, employees, etc. via photos, videos, audios on online and social media platforms. For instance, if your customer is happy with your brand, they won’t mind advocating your business on their social media channels with pictures, videos, telling people how good your offerings are.

Also, for a direct-to-consumer brand – that deals directly with the customers without the intermediary distribution channels – UGC turns out to be the best strategy. Include both the branded and user-generated content in the ratio of 8:2 respectively and experience the results yourself.

3. Go live frequently on social media channels

If you have an e-commerce business, this is one of the best social media features you can employ in your brand strategy. From showcasing collections, to live demonstrations, you can make the most out of Live features. And the best part is, it is less populated and an incredibly low effort way to interact with your customers!

4. Use a visual call to action

“A call to action button acts as a virtual handshake, inviting people to your website.“

A visual call to action is gaining more significance these days. Generally, marketers use CTA in content where they insert the link of the product page. But you can use a graphic/ creative/ image to draw attention immediately.

For instance, a customer sees a complete video on your website, giving you an impression that they liked the video. Now it’s your responsibility to make a call-to-action and ask them further with a visual, inserting the link of the website you want them to visit.

5. Incorporate Memes into your strategy

What is the latest trend of a meme going on these days? There would be hardly anyone who could not answer this question. Memes have become a part of our daily lives! Well, we can even use them in marketing. The amalgamation of laughter and entertainment builds an emotional connection between the brand and its customers. If your audience can’t relate to your meme, it’s of no use! Choosing memes for attracting customers could be an incredible decision for your brand if done right.

Quick tip: You can also incorporate topical advertising in your strategy as customer engagement is at the peak when they are entertained. Topical memes are based on trending issues, letting your customers connect with you better.

6. Build a connection with your customers using visuals

To maintain your customer base, it is very important to get personal with them especially for brands where there is no physical interaction. Images or pictures have the highest audience engagement than any other type of media content. If your social media strategy has a lot of pictures related to brand promotion, chances are that even by those efforts customers do not feel a connection with you. Well, to create that sense of connectivity you can upload candid pictures or videos of your staff, warehouse, office, etc.

How can we help you?

Using visual content marketing is easy. But it’s a hard task to create visuals. Well, no worries we are here for you. From customizing ad content with our performance marketing solution to helping you create a brandstore with Kartify – our brand store tech, we have everything to help you with. Request your free DEMO now!

Visual marketing can pump up your communication level while boosting web traffic. These were some of the brilliant ideas of Visual marketing that will help to grow your online brand. So what are you waiting for? Start incorporating visual marketing strategy today and see the results yourself.

Gamification Marketing: Fuel your Business by Incorporating these Tips in your Brand Strategy

In a world where people are overloaded with advertisements, they have an infinite number of options to choose from. Not only has it become difficult but also very important to pull off their undivided attention. But the question is how? Gamification is the answer to this problem as it encourages people to engage actively.

We all love playing games as it challenges and rewards us. It is not just a source of entertainment, but also engages customers and can be a powerful tool.

What is Gamification Marketing?

“Gamification is the process of incorporating the game mechanism into an already existing system to entice the customers.”

Gamification is a marketing tool to pull off the customer’s attention. In the language of marketing, gamification strategy begins when a business uses a popular game to promote its brand while offering rewards and incentives to people. People are more likely to engage when they have a chance of achieving something. This way you can indulge your customers while using gamification as a powerful marketing asset!

6 tips to enhance your brand strategy with Gamification Marketing

1. Enhance your strategy by introducing creative rewards

To ensure the ultimate customer interaction and engagement, you must come up with creative rewards. No, we are not talking about expensive gifts, rather social recognition resonating with your business.

For instance, if you are a Jewelry brand, making customized jewelry. To increase your social media presence, you can launch a campaign during the festival season, encouraging people to post a video wearing your jewelry. Ask them to use your brand’s hashtags as they tag you. This will increase your engagement and as a reward, you can feature the best participant on your official social media page. Micro influencers love to participate in such community building activities.

2. Celebrate and appreciate all the users

The best rewards are for the ones who possess proficient skills and give the best performance. But, will you forget the ones who tried and were not able to do well? We can’t afford that. Our ultimate goal is to engage customers and it is imperative to keep in mind all the participants as essentially they are your actual customers. Sometimes even a “thanks for participating, we value you” is more than enough to motivate them to engage in the future.

3. Monitor the process

Tracking the process has two-fold benefits. Firstly, it’s beneficial for your users. Customers are very keen to know where they stand to win rewards and gifts.

Secondly, tracking the process is not only beneficial for customers but is of vital importance for the brand itself. Brands get to know whether the strategy is driving their business goals or not. Tracking makes it possible to get a quantitative measure of their progressions and to know about where they are lagging.

Quick tip: Want to monitor your performance? Having captured all data and user logs for analytics and insights, Kartify – our brand store tech – lets you create custom reports. To know more, request your free DEMO now!

4. Incorporate real games

If you choose to integrate gamification marketing into your platform, you have to play smart. Incorporate real games for your customers and see how they welcome it. If they like your game, they will be curious to interact with your brand. Moreover, this will also show the authenticity of your brand.

Quick tip: Incorporating games such as Spin a Wheel, Chess, etc. are the ones people love to play, helping your brand to generate more leads.

5. Keep the gamification process simple

Since the main objective of the gamification process is to generate leads and boost sales through a prescribed path, it is important to keep the mechanism simple. If it requires multiple pages to participate in a contest, people will pull-out, leading to high bounce rates and low engagement rates.

6. Understand your Target Generation

Before you set any marketing strategy, always remember the type of audience you are thinking to target and then analyze what are their expectations and what drives them. For instance, Gen Z & Y may like your game. But Gen X might not like them as much. You need to keep in mind the type of products, rewards you are offering to the type of audience you are targeting, so you could engage them accordingly.

Gamification is quite a competitive strategy as there could be many errors, but you can eventually learn from them, making it a perfect method to engage with your consumers. It is all about how well you take the opportunity to increase your brand visibility.

Featured Image Source: hypernia.com

5 Reasons Why Online Businesses Must Use Omni-channel Strategy!

Have you ever noticed that the product you were looking for in an online store appears right in front of your eyes when you start browsing your news feeds? Well, that’s not magic or a coincidence. The strategy behind this marketing technique is Omni-channel. We are sure you have heard about this word. You might be thinking Omni-channel is just “another buzzword”! Well, that’s not true. It’s a business model that will actually transform the future of your online business in an optimistic way.

What is Omni-channel?

Be it a social media platform – Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. or a marketplace – Myntra, Flipkart, Amazon, etc, or a traditional brick & mortar store, people are present everywhere.

“Omni-channel approach integrates all channels with each other to create a seamless shopping experience for customers.”

Omni-channel is all about engaging the people who are already interacting with your brand while creating a consistent and improved customer experience regardless of what channel they are using. With omni-channel, users can switch various channels effortlessly.

Omni-channel VS Multi-channel

It has always been believed that these above two terms can be interchangeably used. Do you also think that? Well, you are wrong here. Let’s find out why!

Multi-channel means when a brand uses multiple sales channels to communicate with the customers. But are these channels integrated with each other? Here’s when you observe the differences between Omni-channel and Multi-channel. While the latter focuses on building multiple sales channels, the former integrates all of them together to give a seamless experience.

Another big difference is, Omni-channel is a customer-focused approach whereas Multi-channel is channel-centric. It focuses on removing the friction of touchpoints between various channels and making the customer’s journey easier, while the multi-channel focuses on increasing and maximizing the channels available to customers.

5 Reasons Why Online Businesses should use Omni-Channel Strategy!

1. Offering seamless online and offline channels of sales

With the rapid expansion of digital technology, retailers have divided themselves into two teams: Online and Offline. Well, this is not about debating which one is better but bridging the gap between the two and meeting customers’ expectations. Imagine this; You visit an offline store to purchase a pair of white shoes. After reaching the location, you realize that your size is not available. To fulfil your wants even in these situations, brands have developed an in-built store on the website, giving clarity to the customers whether their desired products are available at their nearest stores or not. Ordering online and pick-up from the nearest outlet is yet another example of how omni-channel has integrated both online and offline channels of shopping.

2. Improving customer support services

“Success is impossible without treating your customers well, as the future of your brand revolves around them!”

Omni-channel improves the quality of customer support service. Suppose, you want to buy a pair of shoes from an online brand, but unfortunately, the transaction gets failed. Now you are trying to reach out to customer care, but no one is helping you with the issue. Obviously, as a customer, you were expecting better service.

Let’s grab omni-channel into the picture. Not only had you gotten an SMS after the transaction got failed – given the fact everything is integrated – but also a reassurance that you will get your money back. Moreover, you could have reached out to customer support via chat/phone or social media.

Do you want your customers to develop full trust in your brand? But the question is how? Well, the only answer is Conversational Commerce!

Quick tip: These days customers want instant solutions as they prefer to engage with brands on social media platforms. So maybe you can start reducing your social media response time and start interacting quickly with potential customers!

3. Gathering insights to target the right set of audiences

Checking your customers’ desires and wants can be challenging while running a business. Well, omni-channel keeps track of everything from the kind of products customers like, to their actual purchasing power. Be it tracking the buying journey of customers, or scrutinizing the number of people who have abandoned the cart, omni-channel helps you gather customers’ insights, giving you a better understanding of your target market. You can also keep an eye on who buys what & when. For instance, you have an online store dealing in personal & beauty care. According to data, your sales last year in the fragrance category increased amid the Diwali season and majorly from tier 1 cities. After analyzing the numbers, you will strategize more on the fragrance category with aggressive marketing collaterals, specifically targeting the people residing in metropolitan cities.

4. Increasing brand visibility

Omni-channel involves interacting with your customers across all channels including SMS, phone, social media, interactive live chats, etc. This way, it places your marketing campaign on more than one channel, increasing brand visibility. For example, you are expanding your product portfolio. To communicate the message, Omni-channel will help you spread the word across all the platforms including traditional out-of-home (OOH) advertising media such as banners, travel transit, etc.

Quick tip: Using trigger marketing messages effectively can help your brand increase customer engagement, building sustainable brand value.

5. Getting feedback easily

Feedbacks are valuable information that can be used to transform your business into something better. While the positive feedback motivates you, the negative ones help you to overcome your weaknesses. But the question arises of how to get this valuable feedback. Well, omni-channel has made it very easy as it connects with the customer from different channels, making it easier for customers to provide feedback in no time.

Quick tip: Do you want to create a social proof but don’t know how to? Associate with ANS Commerce, India’s #1 full-stack e-commerce enablers helping you scale your business online. Our brandstore tech solutions are specifically made to boost your online business while creating an incredible online presence. Request your free DEMO now!

How can we help you?

Do you want to give a seamless experience to your buyers without increasing the cost? Here’s why we are here for you. Our brandstore tech – Kartify – helps you give an omni-friendly experience to your customers by:

Enabling order fulfilment from offline shops for online orders
Integrating with leading partners such as Fynd, Arvind, Unicommerce etc.
Conducting offline surveys, cash return

Waste no time and request your free DEMO now!

A proactive omni-channel strategy is imperative to exercise. So, if you want to build and sustain a meaningful yet long-term relationship with your customers, go Omni-friendly today!

Social Justice Day 2021 | 6 Corporate Social Responsibility Activities Every Online Business Must Indulge In!

Social Justice is not just a responsibility but a path every individual should walk on. Moreover, it’s the duty of each organization to follow norms along with indulging in social activities while helping society as a whole. To communicate the importance of Social Justice, February 20th every year is celebrated as Social Justice Day.

During the last decade, there has been a constant expansion in digital technology, resulting in an increase in the digital and online businesses. Especially after the pandemic, the dependence in this fast-paced industry has increased. But this has also worsened the growing digital divide in terms of the access of the internet, affordability, and availability of skills.

“To address this issue of digital divide, the United Nations (UN) has come up with the 2021 Theme: A Call for Social Justice in the Digital Economy.”

The theme outlines the efforts by the international community to look for solutions to bring about sustainable development, the promotion of full employment and good working conditions, universal social protection, gender equality and justice for all!

The advent of the internet has brought great vitality to the development of e-commerce. Many small and established e-commerce brands are taking social initiatives to build a sense of honesty in their work culture.

“Integrating social responsibility to your organization not only helps the society but also fuels your business as it gives better brand recognition, ensures growth, and increases sales!”

To celebrate and embrace Social Justice Day 2021, we have come up with the 6 best CSR activities you should swear by.

6 CSR activities every e-commerce business should swear by!

“Corporate social responsibility is the concept of management, focusing on social and environmental concerns of companies in their business operations.”

1. Protecting the environment against pollution

The environment is the most important part of our lives. All our core life functions depend on the environment. After the inception of e-commerce, we have experienced both the positive and negative impacts of technology on the environment. On one hand, it has initiated the idea of paperless billing but on the other hand, the packaging of products for home delivery demands more paper and plastic usage.

If you are willing to do something for nature, you must start doing a few changes in your operations. Instead of using plastic in the packaging, go for biodegradable packaging. It will cost you higher, but you can compensate for the cost by manufacturing products with reusable and recycled raw materials. It will cost you less and will be more feasible to carry out your business operations.

Quick Tip: To communicate the same, you can start with social media campaigns, reflecting on the need to save the environment and how you are selling products with reusable raw materials. Nowadays, consumers are looking for more sustainable and eco-friendly products.

2. Joining hands with an NGO

Corporate Social Responsibility is all about companies playing their part in society and giving back, making an effort to associate for a good cause. To support a communal cause, you can also tie up with an NGO/NPO. Consumers love to engage with brands that support a social cause. By launching corporate social responsibility campaigns, you can grab the attention of your users. Cause marketing events make your organization look more credible and reliable. Check your brand’s mission statement and find what you as an organization genuinely care about. Share it with your community. It creates a sense of trust in the minds of the user, persuading them to swear by your products.

Our take: To support the communal cause, ANS Commerce is associated with an NGO called The Earth Saviors Foundation, donating clothes and sponsoring meals to old-age and intellectually disabled people. This initiative not only gives us a sense of satisfaction but also brings a smile to our faces when we see those people getting cared for.

3. Giving jobs to marginal workers and artisans

Unemployment is one of the major social issues, making people do unethical things such as burglary. As an organization, you can definitely bring a change by giving jobs to small artisans and marginalized labourers. For instance, if you are a fashion and clothing brand dealing especially with ethnic wear, you can hire small artisans for handicrafts. This will give a sense of authenticity to your products both in terms of the quality and the cause behind them. With this amazing idea, you can put a smile on both – marginalized workers’ and consumers’ faces.

4. Engaging employees in CSR

If you want to practice social responsibility in your organization, you should first pass on the practice to your internal stakeholders. To engage your employees so they feel an emotional attachment towards their work, it’s important to organize fun office activities while promoting a work-life balance. You can also start with buddy programs to welcome new employees to the organization. Furthermore, you can also plan employee recognition programs wherein you can award the best employee of the month basis their overall performance.

Our take: To prioritize the mental health of employees, ANS Commerce introduced one monthly mandatory leave policy to promote work-life balance!

5. Protecting Customers’ Privacy

With the rapid expansion of e-commerce, privacy has become a major concern of customers as it is almost impossible to complete a transaction without giving your personal information. So it is imperative that your e-commerce platform is secure and provides customers reassurance regarding their data, especially during transactions. Also, after the pandemic, people are preferring cashless transactions over COD. This has raised the need for data privacy even more!

“Protecting customer privacy is not just a law but a moral and social obligation to treat our customers’ private information safely and fairly.”

Quick Tip: Kartify puts forward multiple layers of security for all the brandstores it hosts. Having come with cloud armour, Kartify enables security audits with regular backup and version control. Request your free DEMO now!

6. Focusing on Educational Programmes for underprivileged students

Education is not just a necessity but a mandatory thing to improve the quality of life. We see many underprivileged students who are eager to study but are unable to because of their family’s financial instability. To bring a little change, you can support the children by providing educational programs while motivating them to give the best of their potential. Additionally, you can also start with donation campaigns on your brandstore. To communicate the idea, add an option for the donation during the checkout time, making it easier for customers to support the cause.

Quick tip: You can give free textbooks to the children. You can also hold online webinars and workshops covering social concepts helping them to get an idea of society and its values.

There are many ways to make your business socially responsible. Be sincere and transparent about the information you share. The CSR concept should be natural for every e-commerce company and should focus on CSR activities.

Now that you know all about CSR, when are you integrating it into your organizational structure?

Conversational Commerce: How the Trend Has Shaped E-commerce?

Today, it has become essential for every industry to stay ahead of the most recent trends to survive, grow and fight upcoming contingencies. The e-commerce industry has revolutionized the way people shop today. But the point of focus is ‘How can we surpass the customer experience?’

Customers are the most important assets of any business, and it sometimes becomes difficult to interact with them, leading to unsatisfied customers.

Do you want your customers to develop full trust in your brand? But the question is how? Well, the only answer is Conversational Commerce!

“Conversational Commerce serves as a liaison between businesses and their customers!”

Not only does Conversation Commerce help you customize your customer’s experience, but also makes it easier for you to interact with them, creating a great impact on every touchpoint in your customer’s journey. With modern conversational commerce systems, customers & brands can interact and transact together across a variety of channels. This intuitive interface makes buying more convenient for customers, giving them a seamless and personalized experience.

Let’s dig deeper into the real definition of conversational commerce and check the two main systems brands have been using to serve their customers!

Conversational Commerce Systems

1. Chatbots

Chatbots are excellent solutions to support real-time customer service. It makes the sale process user-friendly, decreasing the gap between online and traditional shopping experiences. They provide you assistance at any time with integrated live chats and detailed FAQs.

2. Voice Assistants

We all know to what extent, Alexa and Siri have made our life easier. Not only are they used by urban households, but also help brands formulate their business plan. Not to mention, collecting reviews has never been this easy for businesses.

6 Reasons why you should use Conversational Commerce?

Conversational commerce generates profound benefits for many brands. You can make the most of conversational commerce by adding a conversational approach to the way you market and sell your offerings. To know more about this strategy, let’s read on to find the benefits of Conversational Commerce!

**1. To provide 24*7 support**

Retailers can collect information through a support system while a chatbot solves the queries of the customers. A chatbot needs to be maintained once it is set up. But once businesses integrate a chatbot, they give their brand the opportunity to connect with each and every customer 24/7 without hiring a large number of customer representatives. Though a human touch to the support is necessary, you can use the bots to cater to the initial level complaints.

2. To send order tracking deets

Integrating your brandstore with messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Hike, etc is a great way to send order updates to your customers. Additionally, you can also send new offers, discounts, etc via instant messaging. You can consider this as one of the advantages of conversational commerce. When people come across exciting offers, they often circulate them among their friends, making your promotional strategy viral.

Quick tip: Want to satisfy your customers by sending order tracking updates but don’t know how to? Kartify brandstores are integrated with WhatApp, enabling alert-based messaging and WhatsApp chatbots! To know more about it, request your free DEMO now!

3. To give accurate solutions to customers’ queries

If a customer walks into a store, they can get help from the in-store staff, asking about the quality of the product, warranty, etc. Imitating this type of experience online hasn’t been as easy and efficient. But with conversational commerce, you can make sure you solve all the queries of your customers. In addition to sending recommendations based on what is trending, stores can answer customers’ questions enabling them to make the right, convenient and suitable choice.

4. To increase customers satisfaction

Consumer satisfaction is the heart of any brand. A satisfied consumer is more likely to come back and promote your brand to others. Conversational Commerce makes the customer feel at ease when they are in your e-store. With customer care being automated, it not only saves the waiting time of the user as the bot answers their queries but also ensures they are satisfied with the quick help.

5. To reduce the Cart abandonment rate

The only downside to online shopping is customers’ scepticism towards the product quality. They generally fill their carts but don’t end up making the purchase, leading to a high cart abandonment rate. In such cases, bots come into play. A chatbot helps you solve customer queries with the best alternatives. For instance, you want to buy a pair of shoes, but you are sceptical about the material used in it. A bot can solve the query in such a case, making you purchase the product.

Is cart abandonment crippling your online business? Read more to know how to reduce the cart abandonment rate!

“Eventually, if the customer is happy the growth of the business is guaranteed!”

6. To remove manual and repetitive work

Whether it is an online retail store or a traditional store, you can’t escape from customers’ dilemma. But in the case of an online store, it becomes hectic and monotonous for the support team to clear each and every query. Here comes Chatbots in the picture with automated responses to manage hundreds of conversations simultaneously so customers don’t have to wait in line for a response.

Conversational commerce presents a huge opportunity for brands and retailers to enhance the customer experience and maximize sales across channels. It has become more important than ever because of its conversational style of interaction as it can enhance personalization and warmth in the online shopping experience.

Now that you know everything you need to know about conversational commerce, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and request a free DEMO, integrating your online store with chatbots through Kartify!